Category Archives: Records

RTAC’s superstar barebow (and now nascent recurve) archer Sam B has been busy closing up his 2015 outdoor season with a bag of potential national record claims – adding to his already impressive collection of certificates!

Shooting at the Hampshire Championships this weekend (September 20th), Sam shot his way to at least two, possibly three new bests. His dad Zep tells the story:

Beautiful setting (…at the Hampshire Championships), plenty of archers on 29 targets shooting Metric rounds. Carla Piper was our welcoming host, arranging a target just for Samuel, and a handful of jovial judges who made our day most enjoyable. Samuel claimed 3 National records, 40m with 260 points (though this may have been recently beaten but not yet updated), 30m with 297 points (breaking his own record) and finally the Metric iv record (which has stood since 1990 at 1149 points) with 1171 points. All in all a decent final shoot of the outdoor season.

Once again, our congratulations to young Sam (and his support team) for such outstanding results!

Alex Rowberry (620) gold in theJunior National compound (highest score of the day I believe)

James Ashenden silver (300 points) in the short national.

Bronze team trophy for Charlie, Daniel, Grace and James with a score of 1869.

Much to the disappointment of Mayflower I picked up the signed “Gillo” – Michelle Frangilli – cap in the raffle…..might have to donate that to the trophy cabinet at the club!

According to shoot organiser Neill Boatman it was a long but fantastic day, raising over £1000.00 for the appeal. West Essex intend to stage the shoot again next year, bigger and better: the Red Ants will no doubt be back!

On Sunday 22nd June, the annual Rayleigh Town FITA/Metric shoot took place at our fabulous field in Runwell. Report and results here

Meanwhile, out in the tinder-dry wilds of Cambridge, some of the itinerant travelling archers of Essex found themselves at the Netherhall Archers World Record Status WA1440 shoot. Lauren Bann was shooting the Recurve Metric 3 round, with our good friends Rebecca Griffin of CTR shooting Compound Metric 3 and Thomas Boatman of West Essex shooting Metric 2. I (Tim) was up at the slow end with Paul Ramos of Braintree, James Howell from Mayflower and Clive Atkinson from Ascham shooting the WA1440 90m round. Clive’s wife Suzi was also shooting the Ladies’ 1440.

It was a super-hot, breezeless day – near perfect shooting conditions but something of an endurance test: I drank 5 litres of water and scurried back under my umbrella at every opportunity to get out of the searing sun.

Along with the heat, distractions appeared in all forms – Lauren’s mum Marcel:

It seemed to be one of the longest shoots ever, what with the train spotter walking along the shooting field and a escapee child running over the line…

We also had an old lady wander out of her garden into the overshoot buffer on the right hand side of the field too…she was eventually persuaded to go back, but not without an argument.

The heat eventually dropped slightly as the shooting finished and the cleanup began. The long raffle was preceded by the ceremonial cutting of a massive cake, shared out to all attendees which provided a welcome sugar rush…!

Lauren, Rebecca and Thomas had apparently shot slightly below par (not surprising given the conditions and events of the day), while Paul R had trounced his PB by 31 points, claimed the 1200 Star badge and got the first of three all-important Master Bowmen scores. He was probably the only one to maintain his humour all day too – well done Mr Ramos. I was hoping to shoot 1200 for an MB score of my own but I was shocked and pleased to find I had made 1259: a Grand Master Bowman score apparently, enough to win the trophy (and a new club record).

Next year Netherhall are expanding the shoot to a two-day event with a 70m ranking round followed by Head-to-Heads on the saturday and the full 1440 round on the Sunday. I know Paul and I will return; hopefully we can send a strong RTAC contingent. It was a superbly organised and judged shoot: well worth the journey.

A fantastic turnout of Rayleigh Town archers gathered under clear blue skies and in warm sunshine at the 2014 Noak Hill Record Status Western shoot. When the target lists were released mid-week we had 13 archers competing. A last minute entry from the Hanan family pushed that number to 16 – RTAC would be occupying a quarter of the entire shooting line!

No surprise then that we dominated the results sheet with some brilliant performances from young and old(er) alike.

Most significantly, Reece shot to a new County and UK Record claim with a score of 858 in his category of Compound Junior Boy in the Short Junior Western – a marvellous effort, dropping only 6 points from the maximum 864!

The first of the Hanan Family wins goes to young Ryan, claiming top spot in the Recurve Junior Boy for the Short Junior Western (and later being awarded the Lady P prize – again…how does he do it?!)

Grace Tedore had some tough competition in the Junior Girl category but shot a superb 681 points – well done Grace!

Moving up to the Junior Western, Alex Rowberry nailed 826 points out of a maximum 864 to claim 1st place in Compound, maintaining a great run of wins.

In the Junior Western Recurve Junior Boy category, Daniel Ashenden medalled with a fine score of 726 for bronze while teammate Charlie Deeks scored 757 to take second place. Well done boys!

Representing the girls in the Junior Western, Helena Milne was also a winner with a marvellous 662 points.

In the Short Western, Lauren Bann scored a massive 794 points to win Junior Girl (and this after shoulder injury, ‘shooting up’ at a greater distance for her age group, and with heavy aluminium arrows too…Respect, Miss B!).

The Junior Gent category is always hard-fought and deservedly won: RTAC fielded a trio of terrific target-trashers in this battle – James Ashenden scored 443, Jordan Johnson placed 4th with 623 while Luke ‘Mr Medals’ Morgan struck again to claim 2nd with a score of 638. Excellent shooting from all three.

Moving up to the standard ‘Western’, Jackie ‘Binks’ Hanan was victorious again with a fabulous 782 points – all while providing al fresco catering services and coaching support to the Hanan menfolk! Well done Jackie!

Alex’s dad Phil (our Competitions and Events manager) was, I think fair to say, having a tough time in his Long Western category. A sub-par performance perhaps, but still a creditable score of 548 and 5th place. Well done for toughing it out Phil.

Way out in the New Western round, Grant Hanan and I were shooting against the vagaries of the mysterious headwind and tendency to over-aim at 100yds! Scoring was close: Grant put down a 658 for 2nd place while I managed 696 to win.

Once again, congratulations to all the archers (and their support staff) for putting on such an impressive display today. The weather was great, the archery superb! Thanks also, of course, to Noak Hill for staging an enjoyable and smoothly-run shoot.